


Don't You Worry There's Still Time

by Laliandra



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Time, M/M, definitely not love at first sight, totally casual hookups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-23 10:18:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18547804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laliandra/pseuds/Laliandra
Summary: Lovett raises his head wearily, then actually takes the guy in. He says, “Are you... lost? Like, I’m aware that this is probably America’s straightest gay club but, it remains, fundamentally, a gay club.”“I know?” the guy says. “That’s why I’m here.” He is the preppiest thing that Lovett has ever seen outside of a prep school or a ‘welcome to Maine’ brochure. His shirt actually has a tiny anchor embroidered on the pocket.





	Don't You Worry There's Still Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dasyatidae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasyatidae/gifts).



> with thanks to everyone who I yelled about this for way too long, especially the ones who kicked my ass about finishing it, fixed my commas and cultural references. Y'all are the best. Title from 'I Wouldn't Like Me' because it had to be something from the Grey's soundtrack, c'mon.

The club is, of course, godawful because DC is just diametrically opposed in every way to gay culture and manages to fuck up even the basics, like a fucking nightclub. It’s so awful that it makes Lovett want to take up stand-up again, just to be able to properly rake it over the coals. Maybe that’s what he’ll do now Obama’s won, now that he’s back on the losing team in a city celebrating a win that is objectively wonderful but that has gloriously screwed him over personally: he’ll become the world’s bitterest stand up. It’s a tough ask but he’s pretty sure that he can pull it off. It’s the role he’s been preparing for all of his life.

 

He hunches over the bar and glares into his drink, which is obviously when some asshole on the stool next to him decides to try his luck and say, “Hi?”

 

Lovett raises his head wearily, then actually takes the guy in. He says, “Are you... lost? Like, I’m aware that this is probably America’s straightest gay club but, it remains, fundamentally, a gay club.”

 

“I know?” the guy says. “That’s why I’m here.” He is the preppiest thing that Lovett has ever seen outside of a prep school or a ‘welcome to Maine’ brochure. His shirt actually has a tiny anchor embroidered on the pocket. Lovett takes a despairing swig of his drink and ends up poking himself in the forehead with his straw. Fantastic.

 

The guy turns himself slightly on his stool so that he’s actually facing Lovett and, okay, he’s not _not_ cute. He’s maybe familiar, but DC is somehow a very small town. Everyone is kind of familiar. His hair is an off gold that reminds Lovett of old coins and his smile is just the right side of boyishly charming. “You’ve got a bit of something - just- there,” he says, dabbing at Lovett’s forehead with a napkin that he apparently just had about his person. His hands are kind of... something else.

 

Lovett sighs. “Look, I don’t know why you’re here-”

 

“I just said-”

 

“You agreed with the fact that it’s a gay club, that’s hardly a reasoned goal. Anyway, no, oh my god, this is my point now! The reason that _I_ am here is to drink and then possibly find someone to talk into bed or at the very least a bathroom stall.” Lovett wields his drink at the dude, who just laughs, a startle of delight that does sort of great things to his face, but Lovett carries on in spite of that. “Which is not really my preferred environment but I can push aside the memories of swirlies for the potential of good head, or at least I can when not being encroached upon by frat boys.”

 

The guy doesn’t retreat in the slightest which is also something else. “Can I buy you a drink, then?” he asks. The music isn’t loud enough and the lights aren’t low enough for him to to have to be leaning in so close, eyes still bright from laughing. “That seems like it would work for both of our now stated goals.”

 

Lovett frowns. “Are you here to hit on me?” he says. It’s a ridiculous premise but it’s been a minute since he was in politics and therefore allowed to voice impossible possibilities. He misses it. Except that he doesn’t because someone would probably call it ‘blue skying’ and he would be told off for rolling his eyes. He’s better off out of it.

 

“Well, I didn’t come here to hit on you specifically, but I did come here to try and let some guy talk me into bed, so, yeah,” the guy says. Then he holds out his fucking hand. “I’m Tommy. Hi.” Lovett shakes his hand automatically and then pulls it back aghast.

 

“That’s not the name of a person, that is, at best, the name of a dog,” he says, which is a joke he’s pretty sure he’s used before but no one here knows that. It’s honestly disconcerting how much this guy keeps smiling at him every time Lovett insults him. It makes Lovett think bad thoughts.

 

Tommy - Tommy, it’s still unbelievable - signals for drinks with easy confidence. He says, “But like, a pretty good dog, right?”, turning back to Lovett with a grin. It’s a little bit like watching him slip into another person suit, except less creepy, more hot, as something to see.

Lovett snorts a laugh that he can’t hide. “Sure,” he says. “Although just for the record I’m not into puppy play. Hi. I’m Jon, and I’m usually the one being way too up front about my sexual preferences in casual hook ups.”

 

That makes Tommy laugh again, with his whole body, tipping back in a way that displays promising and enviable core strength as he stays stable on the high stool. “So, I’m allowed to hit on you?” he asks.

 

Lovett tilts his head in a way he knows is cute. “I’ll allow it,” he says. Sure, Tommy doesn’t have a promising name or a promising outfit, and he’s nothing like anyone Lovett has picked up or tried to pick up or really even looked at, but there’s just something. Maybe it’s that he keeps laughing at Lovett’s jokes and what is Lovett if not a weak, weak clown.

 

Maybe it’s the small, real smile that gets replaced with a shit eating grin, both equally devastating.

 

Tommy gets them both another drink, settles facing Lovett with his thighs spread in a way that usually screams ‘blow me now’ except that he’s looking at Lovett in a way that is much more like ‘tell me about your feelings’.

 

“So,” Tommy says, “Um. What do you do, Jon?”

 

Lovett rolls his eyes with less venom than he would usually. “Tell me, Tom? No? Thomas? Oh my god. Tommyfer. Do you maybe not do hook ups much? More of a traditional first date over dinner somewhere nice but not too intimidating where you can talk about the wine?”

 

Tommy takes a deep pull of his drink. “Have you been spying on me?”

  
“I’m a pretty good judge of character,” Lovett says. He actually wants to ask how long the long term relationship was that Tommy has so clearly just come out of, but calling him ‘Tom’ had produced the kind of genuine pained wince that meant a real hit, and it turns out he doesn’t want to do that to this strange tall man who has chosen to talk to Lovett.

 

Tommy grins at Lovett like he believes it, and Lovett isn’t thinking about frat boys anymore, despite all evidence to the contrary. He’s fucked a fair few of those: there were plenty knocking around along with the campaign trail who were happy enough to get blown by a Clinton staffer, work out their mommy crushes on a mouth that had been near hers. Tommy could slip right in among their ranks, the whitest white boy even under club lights, neatly pressed and tennis shoes and prep school handshake. None of them ever looked at him like this, though.

 

Tommy says, “You’re looking at me all - never mind. What should I say in return to this checking out, then? Come here often? It sort of seems like you do, even though it is, by your estimation, the worst gay club in DC.”

  
“Yuh huh,” Lovett says, gesturing around.

 

“It had some very positive reviews on Yelp, I’m just saying,” Tommy says, and then goes red.

 

“Fuck, this really is your first time then,” Lovett says. He reconsiders the boat shoes and the napkin wiping and the anchor and feels his face go sympathetic. “Not been out long?”

 

Tommy scrunches up his face. “It’s.... complicated,” he says. “Like, I assume, your employment position and your feelings about gay clubs.”

 

“Oh, that one’s not complicated, clubs are just, you know, an experience you have to be in the right frame of mind for, and this one is just shit. The music is so quiet you can actually hear other people talk and there’s not a single dark corners to hook up in. The drinks are alright, I guess, but there’s a fucking dress policy because DC is a hellscape built on a swamp in the South, when you come down to it.”

 

“Fucking Alexander Hamilton,” Tommy says with a sigh.

 

It takes a Lovett a moment and then he can’t stop laughing, stupid stool rocking underneath him. “Seriously, do you have ten dollars that I can drip soda on? We could be in New York right now, which is a whole other kind of problem but at least they know how to light a fucking club and it’s not wall-to-wall men who look like they’re dressing to be as inoffensive as humanly possible.”

 

“Politics is bad for the soul,” Tommy says, and Lovett lifts his glass and clinks it against Tommy’s.

 

“I’m probably getting out of here,” Lovett says, and sees Tommy’s face fall. “Oh, no, not here-here, not right now! Just. Leaving DC. Probably. I don’t know.” He sort of wants to tell Tommy the whole stupid, sorry story, lay the whole tangled mess of his day at Tommy’s feet and have him sort through it with his calm voice and steady hands. “It’s only been a week since the election, don’t know what the world is going to rearrange itself into yet. I don’t know. I just feel like maybe a change.”

 

Tommy says, “Oh, man, that’s, that’s unfortunate. I think we could do with people like you.”

 

He still looks kind of sad, which Lovett doesn’t even know how to parse. Lovett doesn’t have a lick of energy in his bones to interpret cues, and he fumbles them at the best of times like a kid trying to shuffle cards for the first time, secret things all over the damn floor.  He says, “Really not great at the whole idea of a one night stand, are you?”

 

Tommy knocks back the last of his drink. “Can I tell you a secret?” he says into his glass.

 

“Me?” Lovett asks. “Or that whisky?”

 

Tommy laughs and his laugh lines make him look a little older. He takes a deep breath. “Just between the three of us, I’ve never actually had a stand of any length. With a man. At all.”

 

Lovett stares at him for way too long and Tommy starts to go a horrible, sad red like a sudden onset bad sunburn. Lovett puts his drink back down on the bar very carefully. “Like, when you say that, do you mean you’ve, that you haven’t? Wait, no, you’re just going to have spell it out for me because my brain has come to a sudden arboreal stop.” There’s just no way that Tommy can be implying what he seems to be implying. No way.

 

“The only thing I’ve ever done with a guy is a couple of handjobs in boarding school which, yeah, exactly, I don’t think actually counts,” Tommy says in an even tone that makes Lovett think that there’s probably a dreadful thread of bravery running through him. Lovett thinks about the first time he hit on a guy at a bar, an idiot made of bravado and sweating palms and bad choices. There’s no way he would have got close to just laying it all out there like this, just a casual confession of every shameful thing he can think of. He can’t think of anyone he’s ever met who would. It’s almost humbling.

 

“What the fuck?” he says, shrill. Several people around them turn to look at them and the bartender throws Tommy a ‘is this guy bothering you’ look which is incredibly unfair.

 

Tommy wrenches himself backwards away from Lovett. “Sorry, I’ll just -”

 

“No, no no no,” Lovett says, reaching out and catching him around the wrist. “I am not looking a gift virgin in the mouth, no, god, right, I just, look at you. If I’ve been managing to get laid for years then you should have been able to. You should be like, swimming in a veritable pool of dick.”

 

Tommy pulls a face but doesn’t pull further away. “What? You’re not, I don’t fucking know, some kind of troll,” he says in a baffled tone. “And I’m like, whatever, a weirdly colored nerd.”  

 

“Who has never got beyond whatever the fuck base handjobs is, that whole system is a mystery to me,” Lovett says with his ‘what, a sport’ face on because he just wants Tommy to be laughing again, angled back the right way.

 

“No, it’s -” Tommy says. He rubs the back of his neck. “Look. Jon.”

 

Lovett has a sudden horrible flash that Tommy is about to get up and leave this bar, just walk away, awkward and sad and most importantly unkissed by Jonathan Lovett. Completely unmolested at all, in fact. Un-anythinged. And there are so, so many things that he can think of to do to Tommy, to do with him, to find out about him and to put into practice, all over his lovely body and his even lovelier face.

 

He puts his hand on Tommy’s knee, fully prepared to push down if Tommy considers getting up even a little bit. One twitch. “Don’t,” he says. “You don’t have to explain, it’s fine, weird inexplicable shit happens all the time. You’re like one of those enormous fish they thought were extinct until someone randomly catches one with a load of tuna or something.” Tommy grimaces. Lovett takes a breath and tugs at the part of his brain which can actually do this, makes a living doing this. “Like how birds move in a murmuration, all together and insync, and no one knows how or why they’d do something that good to look at.”

 

This makes Tommy flush a deep, gorgeous pink that Lovett would like to explore very thoroughly, and he says, “Are you saying you think I look good, in some very roundabout way?”

 

Lovett softens his grip on Tommy’s knee but only so that it’s less a threat and more an invite. “I don’t enjoy emotional brashness but, uh, fine, look, I have no fucking idea why you chose me out of everyone in this bar, in this city, all the many many dudes who would kill to be on this barstool and would definitely be fucking it up way less-”

 

“You’re doing great,” Tommy interrupts. Lovett makes an affronted noise at being interrupted and Tommy just grins as he says, “Fine, you’re doing passably.”

 

“I take it back,” Lovett says, absolutely not laughing. He hates being interrupted, he does, he always has.

 

“No you don’t,” Tommy says with a very small smile that’s somehow much worse than all the rest so far. “And it was because you have a nice face.”

 

Lovett snorts. “Nice? That’s a very weak descriptor, Tommy, I’m thinking very bad things about your SAT score right now. Try again.”

  
Tommy says, “Fine then, not nice. Not that you’re not, y’know, nice looking. Kind, I guess. I thought you looked kind.”

 

“No, I don’t,” Lovett says, what else is he even supposed to say to that. The most charitable thing you can say about his face is that it’s not intimidating, probably, and no one calls him kind. The Senator calls him decent, sometimes, which is not really something he wants to be thinking about right now. But he doesn’t have anything else to think about because there’s just Tommy with his dictionary-definition-of-decent smile, completely incongruous with everything about this bar, this city, the soundtrack of sleazy bass.

 

Tommy says, “Agree to disagree?”

 

Lovett pushes his hand a little further up Tommy’s thigh and he swears he hears Tommy’s breath catch. “Want to get out of here?” he responds. It’s enough of an answer, really.

 

Tommy’s whole stupid face lights at that. Lovett has never felt more like a gift. He is going to make this as good as he possibly can for Tommy, which is pretty fucking good. He’s going to tell Tommy this at some point, press him up against a wall and drop filthy promises into his ear. Tommy stands up and Lovett restages this plan to the cab because he’s going to have to reach up on his toes otherwise and that’s just not sexy.

 

“Come on, then,” Tommy says, and Lovett just grabs his hand and pulls him out of the bar, almost giddy with it. Fuck, he hopes that every single person in the place was watching that, watching Lovett Lovett getting the prize of the fucking night, and not even knowing half of the story. It also seems to have gotten to Tommy, who trips out into the freezing November evening, giggling, not letting go of his hand, just letting Lovett drag him along, and it seems like a crime, a felony, treason probably not to take advantage of that. Lovett stops, lets Tommy crash into him under his own momentum, and kisses him.

 

The night is loud around them, somehow, and this makes Lovett all the more aware of everything, of how Tommy has absolutely kissed before, a lot, and knows how to kiss someone shorter, too. It’s a great kiss, and he chases it when Tommy tries to pull back.

 

“Greedy, Jon,” Tommy says. His voice is ungratifyingly even.

 

Lovett rolls his eyes. “Don’t be smug, it’s very unattractive on you,” he lies.

 

Tommy flushes, enough to be seen even in this half light, not back on a main street yet, and Lovett might, another time, another guy, suggest that they just find somewhere here and take their time a bit. But Tommy, alas, deserves better than that. He pushes up to kiss Tommy again, bites a little bit at his lip so that Tommy isn’t getting everything his own way. Except that Tommy groans into it, pulls Lovett against him with a firm, large hand in the small of Lovett’s back.

 

“Yours?” Lovett says with way too much desperation clawing at his voice. Tommy shakes his head. “Okay, then mine? It’s a crapheap at the moment but it’s not too far.”

  
Tommy stills for a moment like he’d also forgotten that there was anything else, any other plan apart from making out in this street, that there could be anywhere else to go in the world. “Please. As long as you’ve got a bed I don’t care. Hell, I’d settle for a fucking futon.”

 

“That’s the level of enthusiasm I’m looking for,” Lovett says. He doesn’t think there’s anything too incriminating in there, nothing to mark him as a DC has-been, the bottom of the fuckable barrel. He needs to stop doing metaphors while he’s around a just-kissed Tommy, it makes his brain go to weird places. Tommy, who has just the edge of rounded cheeks and a blush and very sure hands. Tommy, who hasn’t done this before.

 

Lovett kind of shoves them into a cab. It’s a short ride, Tommy half turned to look out of the window, and it’s quiet, the first quiet they’ve had all night. “Hey,” he says, and Tommy turns back to look at him. “You can still say no,” Lovett tells him.

 

Tommy glances around them like there might be reporters in the trunk, and then puts his hand over Lovett’s where he’s worrying at a loose thread in his jeans. “I know,” he says, soft, and then, “God, is this what it’s like with you? I stop paying total attention to you for ten seconds and you think I’m gearing up for some kind of stop, drop, and roll?”

 

“That’s for fire, not exiting a moving vehicle,” Lovett says. “And yeah, it is.”

 

Tommy turns his whole body to face Lovett, broad shoulders filling his field of vision. “Then I’ll just have to keep giving you all of my attention,” he says.

 

Lovett shivers and Tommy beams at him. Lovett says, “God, are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

 

Tommy runs his thumb over Lovett’s knuckles. “Have you never faked it until you, er-”

  
“Maked it?” Lovett finishes. “Yeah, now and then, once or seven, constantly at a conservative estimate.” There’s always something so intimate about being the back of a car, that little kid bubble where it feels like you’re somehow alone, left to your own thoughts, but there’s also just something about Tommy that invites secrets. He stops his own mouth, leans forward and kisses Tommy despite the inherent tackiness of being that person who makes out in a cab.

 

Tommy makes a very surprised noise but leans into the kiss at once, moves with Lovett in a promising way, his mouth softer than it looks in conversation or even smiling. Lovett feels the rush of so much possibility.

 

They have to break apart when the car stops in that embarrassing way that betrays the fact that they were both very lost in a pretty tame kiss. Tommy hasn’t moved his hands beyond holding one of Lovett’s, for fuck’s sake. Lovett pays some stupid amount of cash and lets Tommy follow him up to his apartment.

 

There’s a moment where he considers just not turning on the lights, pushing Tommy straight through to his bedroom and distracting him with a whole new world of sex, but that might come off a bit axe murder-y.

 

He does kiss him again in the square of light from his open door, letting Tommy lead this one, and Tommy has a hand on his waist and another on his cheek, kissing Lovett with his whole body. Like there’s nowhere else he wants to be, no one else he’d rather be pressed against.

 

“Try not to judge my home too harshly, I have prioritisation issues,” Lovett says into this intimate thing. Tommy doesn’t break it off, keeps kissing Lovett, movie opening backlit, right there on the threshold.

 

Lovett turns on the lights, kicking his junk mail pile over in the process, of course. “I’m still very good at sex, in case this was making you question your judgement,” he says, gesturing around at his apartment. He’s been mostly unemployed, he could say, but then it’s pretty much always looked like this and he doesn’t want Tommy to think he’s some kind of... well. He wants Tommy to like him, in a way that itches at him unpleasantly, makes him want to try too hard - he knows it’s too hard - and can’t stop it anyway.

 

Lovett tries to zone in on the horrible fit of Tommy’s shirt, the way that real lighting makes him even paler, no shadows to help his cheekbones sit more naturally in his face. The nervous pull of his hands. His awful shoes.

 

“Can I get you a drink?” he says.

  
Tommy says, “I see that you have Diet Coke,” gesturing at the various can detritus.

 

“And many other delicious sodas for adults who can’t be trusted to drink plain water,” Lovett says, trying not to start twisting his own hands.

 

“No thank you,” Tommy says. He swallows. “No, I don’t... want that.” Lovett waits but nothing else seems be presenting itself to Tommy’s brain.

 

Lovett steps back into his personal space. “No? Do you maybe want to come to bed with me? Is that what you want to say?”

 

Tommy nods, then again, more firmly. Lovett wants to punch the air for managing to read that one right. One night stands, the proper kind, this kind where there’s a bed and something more than just an exchange of purely dick-based activities in a stall, are tricky to navigate, filled up with rules with hideous punishments of awkwardness for breaking them. Lovett hasn’t invited someone back in... a while. It’s hard and stupid and people want things.

 

He wants to know what Tommy wants. “Tell me what you like,” he says, steering them into the bedroom and discarding any last fucks about the state of it. Tommy seems to have a pretty solid handle on the Lovett brand at this point, he can live with it. And the whole _distract him with sex_ plan does have some merit.

 

“I don’t know,” Tommy says. “That’s sort of my whole thing, don’t know if you remember, there was a whole series of metaphors.” When Lovett turns back from turning on the bedside lamp Tommy is standing at the foot of Lovett’s bed, shifting from foot to foot.

 

“Okay, I’ve definitely seen this porn,” Lovett says.

 

Tommy laughs, then changes it to a giggle and bites his lip.

 

“Jesus _christ_ ,” Lovett says.

 

Tommy breaks into a grin. “What? No one’s ever accused me of looking like porn before, I wanted to take advantage.”

 

“It would be much more effective if you actually had visible eyelashes,” Lovett grumbles, kissing Tommy before he can argue back or do it again. He tries to think back to the bar, if he would have picked Tommy out from the crowd, if he would have even noticed him. Lovett used to think he knew himself pretty well but this year has been a long and draining series of shocks to his core. Could have gone either way and been no less surprising. It seems both fucking insane and inevitable that he’s got this man in his bedroom groaning into his mouth.

 

He says, “We can start with a classic, how about a blowjob? Everyone likes those.”

  
“You got numbers for that?” Tommy says, which makes Lovett laugh way too hard for someone who has been betrayed by polling stats as many times as he has. He pushes Tommy back onto the bed, which makes him flush handsomely, starting to muss around the edges. Lovett steps between Tommy’s legs and messes up his hair some more. “Got to get you to match the sheets,” he says, and undoes Tommy’s top button for good measure. He undoes another button and then pauses. “Are you wearing an undershirt? Is this some kind of cruel game? Am I ever going to get to just get you undressed?”

 

“You can but it’s not like-” Tommy waves a dismissive hand. “It’s been a rough... year? Or so?” This cements Lovett’s working theory that Tommy is probably also in the politics game, outside of the fact that they’re in DC and almost everyone is. Lovett knew he was right not to bring up the campaign. Rough year or so is how he would describe it too, with that exact tone that suggests working so much that time stops having any real meaning. He sighs, and asks the dread question. “Am I going to have to add you to my penance of Republicans I’ve blown? Up my donations to the DNC?”

 

Tommy makes a revolted noise. “Fuck, no, you’re... No. Blue all the way through. Your money is safe. Did you really think?”

  
Lovett hmms and works on Tommy’s shirt buttons. “Oh yeah, dude, if you want to appear less GOP-y maybe try less of ... this entire look and also the whole long term closeted thing. Like.”

 

“I cannot believe you said GOP-y while undressing me,” Tommy says, laughing slightly tightly. “Has there ever been a less sexy word?” He shrugs out of his button down before Lovett has to ask, turns his face up to be kissed as Lovett bends.

 

“My brain is a wonderland,” Lovett says against his mouth, which makes Tommy relax enough to remember that he has hands, apparently, presses them against Lovett’s hips, fingers digging in slightly. Lovett is going to encourage that later. He runs his hands over Tommy’s shoulders, down his arms, which makes Tommy smile into his mouth. “Arms are hot,” Lovett tells him. “Everyone finds arms sexy and yet we never talk about them properly as a society. But the gays are all out there working on those biceps, believe me.”

 

Tommy makes a worried noise. “I haven’t worked on any... anything in a long while.”

 

Lovett pulls back just enough so that Tommy can fully appreciate his lengthy eye-roll. “Tommy, come on, what kind of gross hypocrite do you even take me for?”

 

“One who blows Republicans?” Tommy says. His eyes crinkle so much at the corners when he looks at Lovett like that.

 

Lovett snorts despite Tommy derailing his very important point. He says, “Look, in my defence, they were very hot Republicans and slash or I really needed to get laid. My point is that you’re great, I’m not going to kick you out of bed for not being mega ripped or whatever bro term you want to use. You don’t see me suddenly making disclaimers about my person. You picked me up, you knew what you were getting into, I will not make any excuses.”   

 

“I’m sure ripped covers many social groups,” Tommy says. He pushes his hands down from Lovett’s hips to span his thighs, stares down at them. “And you don’t have anything to make excuses for. No disclaimers required.” He’s looking at Lovett like he’s having a lot of thoughts, devourous ones, which doesn’t make all that much sense to Lovett but then he remembers the closet. It makes you starving.

 

He says, “So, thighs, huh? That’s pretty gay, I have to tell you, definitely one of the gayer body parts to be into.”

 

Tommy laughs, and kisses him, and laughs again at himself, apparently for having that reaction.

 

“Alright, enough of this, you’re getting blown now,” Lovett decides. Why is he even doing anything else when there’s a gorgeous guy sitting on his bed laughing at his lines, touching him with wanting hands that Lovett needs in his hair.

 

He steps back a little and makes a delighted noise at how much Tommy is already straining the very ironed lines of his slacks. “You got hard from kissing me,” he says, a little more rough than he was expecting.

 

“Well. Like you said. Thighs,” Tommy says, with a very valiant effort not to look embarrassed.

 

Lovett is even more determined than ever to absolutely blow his fucking mind. He’s had plenty of practice and Tommy just keeps giving him more and more motivation. Lovett steps back, gestures at Tommy’s inevitable khakis and says, “Okay, take those off for me,” with all the assurance that comes from making someone hard. There’s just nothing like it, seeing the hot rush blood proof that a guy really wants you.

 

Tommy makes a face as he wriggles out of his pants like somehow Lovett might not want to see that his dick is hard, and huge, and ready.

 

“How are you even real?” Lovett says as he gets on his knees. “What the fuck. Whatever miracle I said earlier, raise the level. Holy shit.”

 

Tommy has that pleased embarrassed look on his face that Lovett is already extremely fond of. He tries to refocus on the mission at hand; one night of ruining Tommy for all other men going forwards, nothing that can get out of hand. That’s what Tommy wants. That’s what Lovett wants. It _is_.

 

Lovett sets his mouth to the run of muscle down Tommy’s thigh and half kisses, half sucks until Tommy is squirming, muscle going tense enough to bite. Lovett doesn’t, for now. He nuzzles into Tommy’s dick instead, over his pants, closes his eyes and just presses in, hears Tommy whimper above him which means he’s watching. It’s all about optics, this part, getting them half way before you’ve even done any meaningful action, playing on some primal button that gets pressed when you see a man looking like he can’t get enough of the feel of your dick, desperate enough to shove his whole face into your crotch.

 

It’s also not a lie.

 

Lovett pulls back enough to take in the state of Tommy’s hard on, already making a damp patch in his standard issue grey boxers. “This,” he says, putting his mouth on it very briefly. “This is the good stuff right here, you know?” He looks up for further assessment, finds Tommy very flushed, hands clenched in Lovett’s duvet cover, mouth red like he’s just bitten it. Lovett feels his smile radiate out from him like his smugness is visible light.

 

Tommy says, after a deep breath, “Dick generally, or?” This isn’t an attractive angle on him, really, but fighting to get even a few words of composure out is a good look on anyone.

 

“Well, yeah,” Lovett says, gesturing at himself. “But specifically this, see, you can lean forward, good, this little patch right, mmhmm, right here where you’ve been leaking right through.” He pushes his thumb right into the middle where he knows Tommy will be sensitive. Tommy jolts backwards, puffs out a laugh like he’s startled at his own reaction. Lovett raises his eyebrows at him, that bright feeling in full force like champagne bubbles in his blood. Tommy says, “You know I’m starting to get the sense that you’re like, some kind of praise junkie. Mad for feedback.” Which makes Lovett startle himself, weirdly delighted with this assessment.

 

“There’s nothing like it, come on, everyone likes to see the effect they’re having.” He puts his mouth briefly where his fingers were, just enough to feel the hot swell of Tommy’s dick. Waiting for him. “But, yeah, I have to concede that I’m maybe a particular fan. So don’t be shy about it.”

 

“About what?” Tommy asks breathlessly.

 

“Oh, that’ll do. But anything. Don’t pretend that you haven’t watched enough very straight porn that you’re not into being told you have a gorgeous big dick. You can be pleased about it, babe.”

 

Tommy jerks again, bites back a sound and then says, “Sorry. I... It’s good, it’s really fucking good, Lovett.” His hand flexes on Lovett’s shoulder, half aborted in a way that Lovett is genuinely excited to override completely. “I’ll try harder. Boarding school habits die hard, you know?”

 

“Everything I know about boarding schools comes from pornography and sad British novels about old time repressed homosexuals so, not so much,” Lovett says. He doesn’t say anything about Tommy could easily have fallen out of either of them, doesn’t say anything about how implausible all of this would be to high school age him. “I was not boarding school material, let’s say that.”

 

Tommy makes a face like Lovett had let something slip out, something sad and true, the kind of thing that he’s made a joke these days because that’s the best fuck you to high school that there is. “Well, you’re porn material now,” he says.

 

“Ugh, you cheese,” Lovett says and angrily takes off Tommy’s boxers in retaliation.

 

Tommy, inevitably, horribly, and cruelly, has a gorgeous cock. “This is so unfair,” Lovett says, pushing his hands up Tommy’s thighs. “Luckily for you I’m very motivated by spite.” Which makes Tommy laugh, edgy with being turned on; one of Lovett’s favourite kinds. “Watch and learn,” he says. He ducks in like he’s going to suck the head of Tommy’s dick and then at the last moment feigns, goes sideways to mouth at his thigh, kiss up from the root, working his way around until his lips are following the thick vein to the tip. Teasing is an underrated skill in blowjobs, he’s found. Tommy seems to agree, is wonderfully response in his body if not his voice. Not yet anyway. “I hear - so I’m sure that you’ve heard - that the other teams like when girls get wet, so, I’ll tell you, boys who like boys like it too,” he tries, just to test a further hypothesis.

 

It is a good theory, by the way that Tommy leaks into his mouth, the way that a muscle in his thighs jump, how wrecked his voice sounds when he says, “You’re taking this, um, elder gay thing very seriously, huh.”

 

“You can say yenta, I give you permission, although technically that means gossip or busybody in yiddish,” Lovett says with a laugh, and goes back to his cruel regime of not quite sucking on the head, just closing his lips around it and waiting for Tommy to push. And when he does, it comes with a hand on the back of Lovett’s neck, not pressing but there, firm. Lovett grins to himself and pushes his mouth down, slow slow slow, washed over with the noises that Tommy is making, groans and softer, more desperate things. He drags his mouth back up to say, “The louder you are, the more you get, sweetheart. You give, you get back.”

 

He looks up at Tommy, who is leaning back on his other arm and looking down at Lovett in a very gratifying way. Lovett shifts on the floor, his stupid smart clubbing jeans digging in everywhere.

 

Tommy forces out a couple of breaths, apparently needs to before he can make a real noise. “You want me to, to push?” He presses two fingertips to the back of Lovett’s neck and Lovett’s breath catches.

 

He says, “Yes.” It feels like a trust given over. Usually if dudes want to fuck his throat they just know; they’ve asked matter of factly beforehand or they pick up on the signals and just do it. It’s not like this moment where Tommy is looking at Lovett on his knees between Tommy’s thighs like he’s something to take seriously.

 

Tommy pushes with all of his fingers, pushes Lovett forward a small amount and Lovett goes further. “That’s good,” Tommy breathes. “Oh wow.”

 

Lovett doesn’t comment on the wow but files it away to maybe comment on later.

 

He lets Tommy guide the pace, push with more and more confidence until Lovett feels him start to own the rhythm, and Lovett loses himself in it like a good run or a really good chorus, beat after beat, everything getting wet as his hand slides to to meet his mouth, doesn’t stop it getting a bit messy because Tommy is clearly very here for that too, starting to drop, “yes,” and “oh fuck,” in between his breaths and that’s when Lovett pushes a spit-slick finger back behind his balls, just as a tease.

 

Tommy jerks back, startled, almost hitting Lovett in the face, almost kneeing him onto the floor.

 

“Sorry,” Lovett says at once. “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, that was... That was really dumb, I should have, that’s not something you just do to first-timers, don’t know what I was thinking. I won’t... again.” Too comfortable for a one night stand, not thinking at all. He can feel the urge to curl up and go away rising.

 

He looks up at Tommy who still has one leg drawn up slightly defensively, face flushed. “Hey up there,” he says, trying to read the fucking room and failing. Tommy takes a breath, and says, “I don’t, er, necessarily object to, er, that. To fingering. I’ve done it to myself and I -” he takes another huge breath, not quite able to look at Lovett for this part. “I liked it.”

 

Lovett says, “Well, it’s very good, you’re right about that. It’s great. You want to, fuck, I really fucked that up. But like, getting fingered and blown is one of life’s great pleasures. You want to get up on the bed properly and I can do this properly? Because I _can_ do this properly.”

 

Tommy pulls another face that Lovett can’t quite read. “Or I can go back to this blowjob that we were both enjoying greatly because I have many skills?” Lovett tries.

 

Tommy laughs and wipes his hand over his face. “You have to promise not to laugh,” he says.

 

“I absolutely cannot make that promise,” Lovett says.

 

Tommy sighs. “Fine. Well then. I was very nervous, like, really nervous and I read a bunch of stuff on the internet where they said you should be clean so I - god this is the worst thing, this is worse than when I threw up on a teacher in middle school - I did clean but I think I was a bit... overzealous.”

 

There is a long beat where Lovett tries to process all of this and then he presses his face helplessly into Tommy’s thigh. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just. Oh Tom Lastname, you are something else.”

 

“One for one on mood killers?” Tommy says. “We can just... We can stop, if you want.”

 

The thing is, Lovett has kicked dudes out of his apartment for way less. He’s definitely refused to carry on blowing them for what were, he will admit, fairly minor inconveniences. He likes self confidence, and he has never really got the whole virginity fetish that seems so rife among porn consumers and creators. But he can’t even start to think about stopping this. He presses a kiss to Tommy’s thigh while he gets his thoughts together, then another one because it’s a very good thigh.

  
“I still like my plan,” he says. “If you’re up for it? You can just leave with-”

  
“If you’re going to say my dignity intact I think that ship has firmly sailed,” Tommy says. His voice sounds less wavering now, at least.

 

Lovett grins and turns his head, finds a smile waiting for him. He says, “We don’t have time for all of my embarrassing sex stories if you actually want to get laid, babe, but trust me, that’s nothing.”

 

Tommy crooks a fingers under Lovett’s chin, pulls him up to kiss him, smiling all the while. “I’m up for it too,” he says, in a low voice that Lovett is particularly here to hear more of. “If you want to touch me you’ll have to be, I’m, it’s kind of sensitive.”

 

Lovett cracks up in spite of himself. “Sorry,” he says, taking a breath. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Again. It’s just, we’re going for the full first time cliches here, right. Don’t worry baby, I’ll go slow. I’ll  be gentle. I don’t know, whatever dubious jock types say on prom night.”

 

Tommy snorts. “If I say I don’t know would you believe me?”

 

“Don’t tell me about it,” Lovett says. “I don’t want to hear about your awful bros right now, I want to blow you some more.” He pushes at Tommy’s shoulder. “Get on up there, and I’ll get the lube, okay? And then we’ll work on blowing your mind, very very gently.”

 

“Is this also the part where you get undressed?” Tommy says hopefully as he shuffles back up Lovett’s bed. He’s in that undershirt only, the pale hair on his thighs and his arms a blur in the light of Lovett’s shitty lamp, slightly pulled in on himself. He keeps putting himself out there, taking off his shirt does kind of seem like the least Lovett can do.

 

He shucks off his jeans first because they’ve been trouble for a while and Tommy really did seem into his thighs. Tommy reaches for him and Lovett goes, knee walks up the bed until Tommy can pull his tee shirt off for him. It’s a good move, actually, makes him feel much less on display. Lovett is totally going to steal it. “Now you,” Lovett says, and Tommy laughs and pulls his undershirt off before Lovett can try it out. “You’re so freckly,” Lovett says, charmed, before he can stop himself.

 

“This is nothing,” Tommy sighs. “It’s way worse in the summer.” Before Lovett can tell him off for willfully misreading his tone, Tommy has his hands on Lovett’s shoulders, his arms, his chest. “I think I see what you mean about biceps,” Tommy says, tracing the lines of the few muscles in Lovett’s arms. Lovett is really starting to think he might be getting punked except who would even think to come up with Tommy.

 

“You’re a very good hook up, Thomas,” he says, moving away. Tommy keeps touching him, hand on his hip, over his back as Lovett leans over for the lube that’s on the cabinet. He holds it up to Tommy. “This is not the really quality stuff because I keep forgetting to order more but this is the best that a, like, CVS level store can offer, okay? Don’t be using lotion any more.”

 

“Who says I was using lotion,” Tommy says. “I did -”

 

“-research” Lovett joins in. “How could I forget. I am sadly hot for that nerd shit, if the... everything wasn’t a clue. So you’re safe here.”

 

He kisses a scatterburst of freckles over Tommy’s shoulder. “Okay, I’m going to put my mouth back on your dick now, and then I will actually say when and where my fingers are going rather than just barging backstage like a mad groupie.”

 

“Nice metaphor,” Tommy says with a brave little soldier nod. He shifts in the bed, arranging Lovett’s pillows to his satisfaction, and then opens his thighs.

 

“Right,” Lovett says. “Right, right.”

 

Tommy’s dick is just as gorgeous as when he left it, made for this, really. Lovett braces his hands on Tommy’s thighs and just goes in, sucks hard on the tip and delights at the noise that Tommy makes. It was good on his knees but this has its advantages too, not least that he’s out of his jeans and can press his own dick into the bed for some relief. He sucks Tommy until Tommy is swearing under his breath and then pulls off gently. “You ready?” he asks. Tommy nods, then clears his throat and says, “Yes. Yeah. I think so.” He looks at Lovett, who doesn’t move. “Yes,” Tommy says.

 

“Pass me a pillow,” Lovett says, holding out a hand imperiously. He is just going to demand stuff from Tommy until he’s settled again. That seems like the best plan here, and it’s not exactly a reach for him. “Cool. Now, hips up.”

There’s a lot of things that he could say right now, about the red raw skin where Tommy has been... overzealous, about first times, teasing things and filthy things, jokes and also how very into this Lovett is, Tommy with his legs open all on display, how gorgeous that is. But Lovett doesn’t think any of them are what Tommy needs right now. And they’ll keep. He presses his hand to his own dick briefly, can’t dwell but needs to get back his focus.“This part’s just like a massage,” he says. “Also, the lube is probably going to be cold because I forgot to do the nice boyfriend trick of putting the bottle somewhere warm. Between your thighs while you blow someone is a good one. And I just -” he laughs to himself. “I don’t want to wait, is the thing.”

 

“Don’t,” Tommy says.

 

Lovett pools some lube in his hand, strokes down one of Tommy’s thighs with the other, and then dips a finger in, presses it to Tommy’s hole. Then he does that again and again until Tommy stops tensing up so much. “That’s it,” he says quietly, and bends down to lick Tommy’s dick again, not moving his finger away. “Jon,” Tommy breathes. “Oh fuck.”

 

Lovett pushes gentle circles, and Tommy whimpers, a shaken noise that becomes steadier as Lovett keeps going, slow slow with the pad of his finger, getting lube absolutely everywhere and not caring. Tommy is leaking into his mouth very gratifyingly.

 

“Are you okay if I push in a little, babe?” Lovett asks, kissing Tommy’s tense thigh. He thinks he knows what the answer will be but he’s not making the same mistake twice. Not this one, anyway. “Please,” Tommy says. “It’s... You’re good at this, Jon. Really. Really good.”

 

“Yeah?” Lovett says, feeling his face crumple into something grossly fond. “Thanks. I know.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be making reassuring noises and telling me to relax?” Tommy says, but not in a complaining way.

 

Lovett grins and says, “My competence should be relaxing enough, okay? And you’re really open and relaxed already.” Tommy squirms in a _way_. “Oh,” Lovett says. He gets a bit more lube and leans in closer, presses two fingers to Tommy, just opening him up a little. “See, you go so easy for my fingers.”

 

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Tommy says. Lovett lifts his head to see that Tommy has his arm thrown over his face, every inch of him the right kind of embarrassed. Lovett nods to himself and closes his mouth around Tommy’s dick as he pushes a fingertip into him. He can hear Tommy panting, loud in the bedroom quiet, nothing but the bed creaking as they move and the very very quiet slick sound of his mouth moving on Tommy’s dick. “Lovett,” Tommy says again and Lovett stills but that just makes Tommy push against his finger, so Lovett goes a little deeper, curls his fingers in the gentlest of fucks, strokes Tommy from the inside, god, he’s inside him. Tommy keeps making those small breathy punched out noises and Lovett wants to see this so badly, doesn’t really want to stop sucking him but he has to see. He’s sort of unprepared still.

 

“Oh, hi,” he says, stupidly, softly.

 

Tommy has his hands clenched in Lovett’s pillows, head thrown back. He blinks at Lovett with water-pale hazy eyes. “Hi?”

 

“You’re very pretty,” Lovett says, fuck knows why but it makes Tommy squirm again. And he is very pretty like this, broken open by just one finger inside him. “Pretty when you blush, too.” It sits too high on Tommy’s cheeks really, uneven everywhere else, but it’s still pretty. Lovett slides his finger out and in again to the knuckle, mesmerised by the way Tommy’s face changes, the way his chest heaves. “How’s prom night?”

 

Tommy just about manages a laugh, creaky and strained and pleased. “Good. Great.” He shakes his head a little like he’s clearing out water. “So good,” he says which would seem like a step backwards except that he says with such sincerity. “I didn’t know if it would be good but, it is, it _is_ , your hands and your mouth.” The words just come spilling out of him. “And now when you talk and it’s so good too, and your arms? I really like them.”

  
“In a gay way,” Lovett says, clueing in. “Ah.”

 

Tommy nods and Lovett wants to kiss him, but he can’t really move, isn’t tall enough to reach Tommy’s mouth from here, and it would be too much, too much of a kiss. He kisses Tommy’s stomach, skin that’s within reach, and thinks, _it’s alright, me too, we all wonder_. “It’s different to know,” he says, not looking at Tommy. Tommy’s hand lands clumsily in his hair, manages to stroke gently, catching his ear. Lovett takes a breath and another, kisses his way back down to Tommy’s hip, pushes his finger all the way in, keeps it there so that Tommy can get used to the pressure and so that he can try and kiss all the stupid emotions onto the thin skin over Tommy’s hipbone.

 

Tommy moves his hips slowly, experimentally, breath coming in time. “Now you’re fucking yourself on my finger, feeling good about that?” Lovett says.

 

“Yes,” Tommy hisses. “It’s so good, good fingers.”

  
“You’ve got lovely fingers, you’re going to be great at this,” Lovett says. “Men are going to get into fights for the chance at taking them, trust me.”

 

“Don’t...” Tommy says. “Never mind. Thank you, I will keep that in mind.” He twists a curl of Lovett’s hair. “I _knew_ you liked my hands.”

 

“You're going to touch me with them later,” Lovett says. He’s been so hard for so long that it’s almost a side note at this point. Almost. He can wait, it’s sort of hot to wait, a game that only he knows he’s playing and when he wins he also gets to get off. But he’s got plans for later, for Tommy’s long sure fingers, his wide palms.

 

“Mmm, I am,” Tommy says happily. He tugs at Lovett’s hair again until Lovett looks up at him. “More, please?” Tommy asks. He keeps running his fingers in Lovett’s hair, brave and lovely and bright red.

 

Lovett says, “More of what? More finger? Another one?”

  
“Do you think?” Tommy says.

  
“Are you workshopping your sexual experience with me? Not that I’m not here for that but, oh my god,” Lovett says. “And yeah, another finger is good if you feel like you want more. Want to be fuller. Is that how you’re feeling?”

 

“I feel like I’m not going to last and I want... I want more,” Tommy says, still stroking Lovett’s hair so softly. “You’re clearly very competent, might as well pop as many cherries as possible, right?”

 

“You’re so weird,” Lovett says, biting his lip in a futile attempt to control his expression. He pushes at Tommy’s rim, testing, and Tommy groans, says, “Yes, Jon, please.”

 

“Okay, I’m satisfied this isn’t just some box checking thing,” Lovett says, tracking the expressions as they play over Tommy’s face. He really likes how expressive it is as a face. It’s a pleasing quality. He slides his finger out slowly. “This isn’t too much? You’re not too sensitive still?”

 

Tommy closes his eyes. “The cool helped, I think and I don’t... Almost too much is working for me.”

 

Lovett want to know more about this, wants to know exactly everything about this but that feels like maybe a conversation for another time. Tommy is already turned slightly into the pillow and this is his first time. Lovett can’t imagine what he would have done if pressed for exploration of his kinks during his first time. There hadn’t been much talking at all, for him, and that had not been ideal, if he’s honest, but he probably would’ve just bolted if he’d had to start getting into it. “It looks good on you,” he says, kneeling up a little to brush the back of his hand up Tommy’s chest, over his tight nipples, over the exposed line of his throat. He feels Tommy swallow under his fingers and watches him open his eyes. Tommy says, “You like - this. You like this.”

 

“God, Tommy, what’s not to like,” Lovett says. He runs his hand down Tommy’s chest again, and then makes a decision, sits himself up and kneels over one of Tommy’s thighs, rocks forwards so that Tommy can feel how hard he is. “Works for me, too, see. Getting you all desperate for more, for me, and watching you get into it, and I mean, look at you. I could spend hours on you and never get bored.” He pinches Tommy’s nipple. “See, look at that. I’ve barely even tried any nipple stuff and you’re all squirmy about it. I need at least another day for that. A week for all the places I want to bite. Yeah, I like -” he leaves the same gap that Tommy did. “ - this.”

 

“Likes you too,” Tommy says. He’s not stopped staring at Lovett’s hard on, at Lovett pressing his hard dick against his thigh just for a bit of relief. “You were right about the wet spot thing, too. You’re a smart man.”

 

“Honestly, that’s something I could stand to hear more of,” Lovett says, ducking his head to laugh.

 

Tommy puts a hand on Lovett’s thigh, stretching his fingers as high as he can reach which is pretty cute. “Very smart,” he says in what he clearly knows is a great voice, low and serious. “And very good to me.”

 

Lovett trails his hand back along the trail of hair to Tommy’s dick, still hard and leaking. “A good interlude,” he says smugly. “Keep you from the edge just a little bit longer.”

 

“Oh, well if that’s what you were planning, it’s not really... you definitely shouldn’t have straddled my thigh like that, looking like, like fucking porn,” Tommy says with a breath of laughter in his voice.  

 

Lovett bats his eyelashes at him because he’s terrible at this. “Shall we get you off, then, Tommy?” he asks.

 

“Please,” Tommy says. “Then I can touch you, right?”

 

Lovett loses his internal battle and falls forward onto one hand, kisses Tommy hard, catches teeth as Tommy smiles, doesn’t care.  

 

“There wasn’t like, a ban, you know. I just have focus issues and I was enjoying putting it all on you without a distraction. Of course you can touch me then. You can touch me now if you want, but I know I’m going to be very greedy about your hands, as discussed.”

 

“You talk so much,” Tommy says. He puts a hand tentatively on Lovett’s ass.

 

“Some people - come on, you can grab, I don’t mind - have said too much,” Lovett says.

 

Tommy shakes his head. “It’s steadying, ” he says in the same voice that he said ‘you looked kind’ what feels like a year ago.

 

Lovett has no idea what to do with this so he blusters on. “Not distracting?”

  
“The good kind,” Tommy says, voice warm. He has both hands on Lovett’s ass now, still not grabbing exactly but holding firm. “Although I did really like it, before all of this, when you were fingering me.”

 

“Nearly made it all the way to the end there,” Lovett says, still laughing as he kisses Tommy. He hefts himself back up with his usual grace, wriggles back to crouch between Tommy’s thighs. Tommy leans up a little to look at him, like there’s a good show happening down there, like _he’s_ got the better end of this, when Lovett can look at Tommy’s broad chest and his thighs shiny with lube. And his blush. He wets his fingers again, does it slow and ostentatious so that Tommy can appreciate or object if he want to, and then pushes in with two, slow and steady. Tommy tenses for a beat, has to take a breath before he remembers to relax. “That’s right. Let me in,” Lovett says softly.

 

“Fucking fuck,” Tommy says. He thumps his head back onto the pillows. Lovett thinks about telling people about this, about all the jokes he could make, how he picked up a fucking first-timer with a huge dick who also took to being finger fucked like a goddamn champion, like some kind of Pokemon shiny of vers.

 

He looks again at the vulnerable line of Tommy’s throat, and, fuck, he’s never going to get to use that line even though it’s one of his best.

 

“You look amazing,” he says, something weird catching in his throat. Tommy groans and reaches back, thumps the wall. “You look amazing and you feel amazing, Tommy, god. D’you want my mouth again?”

 

“Just your hand, again, please, please,” Tommy says, hand still fisted against the wall where Lovett should have put a headboard or a scarf but never quite got around to it. This isn’t permanent.

 

Lovett presses Tommy’s hip down, down onto his fingers. “Being blown too much?” he asks. Tommy nods, breath coming out all shaky, and Lovett lets himself really feel it, how stupidly hot this is, what fantastic sex this is, even though he’s barely touched himself, can still feel all the places that Tommy has touched like he’s left handprints. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to do after but it won’t take much, all the small increments of hotness washing down on him at once, now that Tommy is so close he can hardly take it. “Alright then,” he says, half to himself. “Alright okay alright.” He scrapes a fingertip up Tommy’s cock, feels it jump under his touch, feels him clench around his fingers. He’s half tempted to get his mouth on Tommy anyway, but he doesn’t want to risk the kind of orgasm that feels pulled out of you against your will. Not for Tommy’s first one. “I’ve got you,” he says, and closes his hand around Tommy’s dick.

 

“Please,” Tommy says again, almost stern. “Jon.”

 

Lovett fists his dick slowly, doesn’t move his fingers inside Tommy, leaves them pushed in as deep as he can so that Tommy is full. Grounded. That’s how it would make him feel, anyway. “Yes, god, yes,” Tommy says, leaking all over Lovett’s hand, one leg drawing up helplessly.

 

“That’s it, Tommy,” Lovett says, watching him tense. “Come on, I told you to be loud earlier, come on, you’re close now, you must want to make some noise, your whole body is screaming for it.”

 

“Lovett,” Tommy says desperately, repeats it with a rising need, thumping the wall again.

 

Lovett bites his lip and tries to focus on pushing his fingers into Tommy’s tightening hole, fucking him even past this litany of helpless syllables. He says, “Yes, come on, do me proud,” and Tommy shouts, a wordless thing, slamming his hand against the wall and his body down onto Lovett’s fingers as he comes, arching so much that Lovett just about keeps his hand on Tommy's pulsing dick. Tommy throws his arm over his face and just drags in long ragged breaths. Lovett finds himself making shushing noises, petting down Tommy’s rib cage until Tommy says, “Jesus.”

 

“There you go,” Lovett says. “You did it. Well done to you.”

 

Tommy laughs like Lovett was hoping that he would. “And to you,” he breathes, finally moving his arm so that Lovett can see his face. He’s bright red, almost unreal red, eyes all pupil and wonder.

 

“Hello,” Lovett says.

 

“Come here,” Tommy says, making a vague upwards gesture with his hand.

 

“I have to-” Lovett says and moves his fingers just a little inside Tommy.

 

Tommy hisses. “Okay, do it,” he says, obviously bracing. “Oh, jesus, that’s really fucking weird. Okay, up here, now, I’m that guy, apparently, and I need to kiss you.”

 

Lovett tries to convey his lack of surprise at this through his kiss, which might not be the best vehicle for that level of nuance, especially because now he’s pressed up against Tommy, can feel Tommy’s come on his chest, and there’s a lot of other stuff, pleased and primal, getting into the mix.

 

“Welcome to the other side,” he says and Tommy bites his lip, eyes bright with glee. “Did you enjoy your trip here? Good? Good sex? That’s what I’m asking here.”

 

“You know I did,” Tommy says. He rakes his hands down Lovett’s spine until Lovett wriggles, says, very quietly, “Tommy.”  


“Not at my destination yet,” Tommy says, hands going fucking everywhere. Apparently orgasms shake something free in him. “Can I get you off now? Please?”

 

Lovett says, “If you insist,” and Tommy's hands are dragging down his boxers before he's finished talking. He fits his hands to Lovett's hips, grinning still. “What do you want?” he asks.

 

“You really did need to get laid, didn't you,” Lovett says, kissing the corner of his smile. There’s something infectious about Tommy’s loose happiness, makes him feel something akin to butterflies in his stomach. “What if I don’t know what I want, Thomas, what then?”

 

Tommy hmmms in a considering way, and then puts one hand very firmly on Lovett’s hip. “You said you had plans for my hands,” he says, and snorts, clearly at the rhyme. “But I see you’re not going to tell me them, so, I can improvise.” Tommy pushes against the bed with his free hand and just fucking rolls them in one smooth movement like they’ve been doing this for years. Lovett gapes up at him.

 

Tommy says,“You looked like you were about to start complaining about having done all the work or something.” He settles himself over Lovett, weight on his forearms and thighs pressed to Lovett’s.

 

Lovett pouts. “It was going to be something about putting those biceps to good use, actually.” Something about how he was feeling a little bit tired, maybe, but as great as Tommy’s laugh is there’s nothing he can think of that would have been so great as just getting unexpectedly flipped turns out to be, Tommy clearly so delighted with himself.

 

Tommy bends to kiss him. It’s a kiss with intent, his mouth opening Lovett’s up and Lovett lets him, enjoying every pushy moment of it. “Can I touch you?” Tommy says.

 

“You are?” Lovett says. He’s extremely aware of this fact, every inch of his skin that’s being touched by Tommy feels brand new. “Oh, wait, okay, sorry, I wasn’t being facetious, though I do see why you would jump to that conclusion. You meant touch my cock. Got it. Yes you can.”

  
“Is that an Obama joke?” Tommy says.

 

Lovett says, “No.” And then tries to laugh, to not sound like a _complete asshole._ He’s not sure if he pulls it off but he can distract Tommy by wriggling under him until his dick is pressed against Tommy’s stomach. “I would love you to touch me, Tommy. I’m so ready, for real, I got kind of keyed up back there when we were getting you off so prettily.” Just these brushes against Tommy are suggesting that it’s not going to take much, everything feeling edgy good already.

 

Tommy runs his hand up and down Lovett’s side a couple of times, traces his hipbone with the back of his hand, spans his stomach with his hand in a way that Lovett would assume was judgmental in someone else but seems genuinely curious in Tommy. “Whenever you’re ready,” Lovett says, accidentally earnest. Tommy doesn’t look up from his digital explorations, mapping out bones and the very soft bits in between, but he smiles. Lovett remembers that smile from the bar. It would be stupid to start anything now with his life in shambles, when he can’t take a fucking Yes We Can joke with the slightest inch of grace, when Tommy needs something, someone who can be this good all the time, isn’t accidental in their care.

 

Tommy catches his lip between his teeth and sweeps his hand through the hair at the base of Lovett’s dick and then finally, finally up, wraps his hand around it. “Huh,” he says.

Lovett says, “Yeah, so, that’s someone else’s dick in your hand, feeling fine, feeling cool about that too?”

 

“I feel like I came too recently to feel like this,” Tommy says, gravelly and grave. He pushes Lovett’s dick very slowly through his fist, still staring like he’s working out a puzzle.

 

“It’s a penis, not a rubiks cube,” Lovett says. “Not that this isn’t working for me, because, again, nerd shit.” Both of them gasp when the tip of Lovett’s dick pushes through the tight ring of his fingers. “Also, your _hands_ ,” Lovett adds, unable to look away or do anything helpful like get the lube.

  
“Rough and slow working for you, then?” Tommy says. Lovett is going to _die._

 

He says, “I’m liking this confident side of you, Tommy, really I am. And yes, it is, you can totally tell that, you’re holding my dick.”

 

Tommy’s grin is wide and sunny. “I am, aren’t I.” He shifts his weight to push a thigh between Lovett’s legs, still slightly sticky from earlier, and Lovett has to clutch at his back. Tommy says, “I liked earlier, when you were just, just rutting against me, but I also like this, so, bit of both?” He presses Lovett’s dick against his thigh.

 

“Something something hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at once, something dick holding,” Lovett says, waving a hand. It’s not his finest work but whatever. Tommy still laughs. Lovett tilts his hips to push harder against Tommy’s thigh and sighs with the pure relief of it, the need that’s been building in the background suddenly very foreground. Rutting kind of is the only word for it, the needy, animal movements of his body that feel almost beyond his control, but Tommy liked that. Likes that, if the noises he’s making are a sign, which they are, Lovett can match them already to the best noises Tommy made when Lovett had his fingers inside him. Just thinking about that, the clench of Tommy’s body, makes him wilder, still trapped between Tommy’s broad firm hand and the hard muscle of his thigh. Lovett bit that thigh earlier. Lovett had those hands in his hair.

  
“Should I get the lube?” Tommy asks, not stopping the movement of his hand, using the whole width of his hand over Lovett’s dick, the muscles of his forearm standing out as he braces himself over Lovett, enveloping him. “You do seem pretty on board with this, though, I don’t usually get that wet until I’m really close.”

 

“Funny story,” Lovett says through clenched teeth, which makes Tommy’s whole face light up again, say, “Already?” like he didn’t drip into Lovett’s mouth the second he got it. But then he kisses Lovett, soft, like a thank you. Lovett kisses it back to him, puts his arms around Tommy’s neck end of a movie style. “Blowing you was hot, Tommy, what do you want from me,” he says.

 

“Just that, just this,” Tommy says raggedly, muscles clenching. “I’ve never made a man come before, Lovett, you’ll be the -”

 

“Oh, shit,” Lovett says, trying to get ready to actually come, not just the disappointing hiccup kind. He, and more importantly Tommy, have put work into this sex, he is not going to fall at the last... thing. He thrusts up and Tommy moves so that Lovett’s dick is rubbing against the crease of his hip, against the mess Lovett made of him. Lovett bucks into him, hands clutching at Tommy’s shoulder, at his side.

 

Tommy bends down somehow, catches Lovett’s bottom lip between his teeth and then chases the bite with a kiss and says, “First.”

  
“Oh, fuck,” Lovett says, feeling his orgasm building up, any last defenses completely comprised by Tommy and his calculating mouth, by every unexpected second of tonight building to this one. “Tommy,” he manages, breathless and wanting, and then not wanting as Tommy closes his hand back around his dick, so firm, taking every wild movement, and he’s crashing down, coming hard in Tommy’s hand, being kissed and kissed, unable to do anything but feel it. All he can do is keep gasping into Tommy’s mouth, eyes still screwed shut and he doesn’t really know how long they’ve been closed for, and Tommy’s hand is still firm on his dick as he twitches. “Well, shit, Thomas,” he says. “Congrats.”

 

Tommy snorts and that lets Lovett’s laugh loose, tucking his face and he giggles into Tommy’s shoulder, all wrapped up in him. “So, I did good?” Tommy asks, even though Lovett is boneless and laughing and covered in his own come.

 

“Yes yes, good dog,” Lovett says. He doesn’t really know what else to say, you can’t tell a hookup that’s the best sex you’ve had all year, so weak callbacks it is.

 

Tommy is still laughing, says, “I thought you weren’t into that.”

 

Lovett just... likes him so much. “Well I’m not usually into virgins or WASPS either,” he says, a little too sharply. Tommy stiffens minutely against him, immediate proof that Lovett just shouldn’t be allowed in to these soft places right now when the thought of just purely liking someone makes him defensive as all get out. The reality of reality intruding is very unpleasant. He breathes out and rubs his foot apologetically against Tommy’s ankle. “You are all kinds of anomaly though, Tommy, so I’m not sure I’m counting you.”

 

“That’s some oppo use of statistics,” Tommy says with concerningly experienced bitterness. “I don’t fit in with your predetermined conclusions so you dismiss me.”

 

“Hey, I was a mathematician in another life,” Lovett objects. He lifts his head and kisses Tommy with a tender mouth, carefully. “And I’m not dismissing you.”

 

Tommy sighs into his mouth. “So, can I -” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Can I stay the night?” he says. It’s so obviously not what he was going to ask.

 

“You know what, yes,” Lovett decides. He can’t throw Tommy out onto the mean streets of DC after his first time, what kind of shitty human would that make him. He doesn’t usually let people stay over but, hey, anomaly. “I steal the covers and I kick, though, and I’m not pleasant in the morning. Just so you know.”

 

“Somehow I could have guessed that,” Tommy says, all pinkly pleased looking. He stretches obscenely, a mile of freckles begging to be kissed. Lovett lets himself stare for a while, turn whatever aches in him into something more like spiteful satisfaction - yes, he did pick that dude up in a bar and take him home and blow his whole fucking mind, even now when he’s not at his best looks- or speech-wise. Anything-wise. He thinks about Tommy saying, “rough year,” and god, hasn’t it been. This will do as a weird fucking experience as a summation of his DC life. A roller coaster, surprising and undoing and brilliant and not ending at all where he thinks in his heart that he’d like. Feels right. He sighs with way too much feeling and tries to turn it into a yawn.

 

Tommy says, “Oh, sorry, I’ll - I’ll go clean up, it’s late, huh, hadn't noticed,” and is turning and getting out of bed before Lovett has a chance to brace himself.

 

He thinks about getting up, washing, and then stop thinking about that because the thought is horrible. He has a brief flash of panic at Tommy just wandering about his apartment, touching stuff, looking in drawers. But Tommy is clearly a better person than he is because he comes back pretty fast, slides back into Lovett's bed naked like he belongs there.

 

“Did you just learn to be naked from your frat house or were you always like this?” Lovett grumbles. He leans out of the bed and gathers some boxers that he was maybe wearing earlier and a tee shirt.

 

Tommy slides an unhelpful arm around him before he can get them on, and says, “Well, I was born naked, don’t know about you.” Lovett doesn’t need to look to see that Tommy is looking very pleased with himself but he looks anyway. He suddenly, viscerally, understands that creepy dude from Buffy who was willing to fuck up the whole world just to keep one night of sex frozen in time.

 

“But now I have put away childish things, Tommy,” Lovett says, stalling for time before he has to work out what the fuck he's going to do with his fucking body.

 

“That's a weird thing to call your dick,” Tommy says.

 

Lovett allows this to distract himself from putting on his pants, but manages to wiggle into his tee shirt under the force of Tommy's forcefully snuggling arm. He knows he’s been extremely distracted by all of the fucking, but he really should have pegged Tommy for a cuddler. There's that touch of a clearly spoiled child in his confidence. He says, “You're a weird thing to call your dick,” pulling his tee shirt as far down as he can.

 

Tommy sighs. “Will you stop fussing and just let me afterglow for a goddamn minute before I pass out?”

 

“I'm not fussing,” Lovett protests. He puts his head against Tommy's chest. It's broad and firm, of course.

 

He hasn't ever been a hook up person, really. Not that kind of gay. It means he overreacts to having someone share his bed,that's all. Some dumb switch inside him that has flipped to settled, and steady, like Tommy's heartbeat that he can hear now. He breathes out.

 

Tommy says, “I run too hot to do this for too long.” He sounds apologetic, but regretful too, so Lovett doesn't make a thing of it.

 

Which is stupid because he loves to make a thing of things. That's his whole thing. “I am totally going to pass out now. No choice. You can cuddle me in my sleep. I consent.”

 

“Thanks,” Tommy says, weirdly softly. He makes a weird throat sound that eventually turns into a, “I don't always sleep that great. Don't freak out if I get up in the night.”

 

“Oh my god, now who's fussing,” Lovett says, only partly performative cranky. He pats Tommy's chest and snuggles in to put an end to the matter. Maybe some more of Tommy's apologetic noises turn into words, but Lovett can't parse them as he plummets into sleep.

 

*

 

Lovett doesn't even get one nice moment when he wakes up before his brain launches into a supercut of all the stupid, stupid noises he made last night. He turns over, but that just makes him wake up further and remember a few fading moments in the night where he turned and reached out to check Tommy was still there.

 

“Hi,” Tommy says from next to the bed. Lovett has pretty much turned over to face his crotch. Naturally.

 

Lovett can’t just vanish from his own bed and he probably can’t non verbally make Tommy leave so he says, “Hi?” and tries to work out where and how he exists in space and time. One syllable isn’t really enough for that, though. “Are you on a Blackberry? I fucking knew you were one of us. No, fuck, don’t tell me anything.”

 

“Do you want go get some coffee?” Tommy says in the indulgent voice that people who have been awake hours use on the newly conscious.

 

“There’s a pot in the kitchen, filters are... Also in the kitchen,” Lovett says and turns his face back into his pillow instead of Tommy’s naked thigh. There’s a real and horrifying possibility that if Lovett lets Tommy stay in his bed now he’ll just never let him leave, and not in the fun way. Not for long. “Help yourself.”

 

He feels Tommy’s hand just, just brush his the wild top of his hair, like a breeze that abruptly changed its mind. Tommy says, “Oh. Yeah, sure.”

When Lovett wakes up again the apartment smells of coffee, of course. Lovett tries to do something not too deliberate looking with his hair, then pulls on whatever clothes are nearest to go greet his inevitable blond interloper. He’ll probably have a quip ready by the time he gets to the kitchen.

 

There’s just a coffeepot waiting.

 

“Of fucking course,” Lovett says, and goes back to bed.

 

*

 

There is a moment when Lovett thinks about Tommy again. Well. There are many, moments where he thinks about Tommy, but in the narrative that he’s crafting, there will be one moment where he thinks about Tommy. He probably won’t even name him, actually, and not just because he can’t stop himself from thinking about how Tommy’s name from his mouth sounded when Lovett was ruined and happy. Lovett will just say “some guy” because that’s all he was. That’s all.

 

But he’ll remember, halfway through the speech that he’s writing on a fucking bus, throwing hope into the wind, betting on himself one last time, the note in Tommy’s voice when he said, “I think we need people like you.”

 

There’s still a spark left for that to flame. And he nurses it all the way, with all the spite and determination and _hey fuck you_ that’s got him this far, with all the brains he knows he has, he knows. And when Jon Favreau, Jon fucking Favreau, his horrible awful mirrorverse luck given, talent given, looks given other self, says, “You know what, I like that you don’t want to hide your light under a bushel,” Lovett can laugh. When he tells the story of how he got interviewed to be Obama’s speechwriter he’ll mention the laugh, and he’ll mention thinking of a guy he hooked up with and how he said something Lovett really needed to hear. And that will be all.

 

*

 

“And this is my office, I’m here, like, all the time,” Jon Favreau - _“You can call me Favs! Everyone does!_ ” - tells Lovett with an aw shucks face that he’s been deploying with horrible success.

 

He seems to be mostly unaware that he’s handsome which only makes the whole thing worse but not even that can dent Lovett’s happiness. It is a granite stone, a Mount Rushmore of happiness except less colonial. He works at the White House now, the actual White House. He met the President, he’s going to meet the President a lot, because _the president is his boss_.

 

“No time for a social life, but you probably knew that when you took the job, we’re all eating here, sleeping here, it’s just like campaign life but with classier digs.” Jon winces like he keeps doing whenever he brings up the campaign. “Anyway! My office has the window so you’ll find all kinds of people finding an excuse to eat lunch in here. Tom’s bringing us something, but don’t worry, you’ll like him, probably, everyone likes Tommy.”

 

Some animal sense prickles along the back of Lovett’s neck. “Is it Tom or Tommy?” he asks casually as he picks up a pen from Jon Favreau’s desk. It’s a White House pen from the chief speechwriter’s desk and it’s in among a mess that wouldn’t look out of place in a flophouse. He’s made it. He’s there.

 

Jon Favreau laughs. “Either, really, I think Tom was trying to rebrand himself out in Iowa but everyone kept calling him Tommy. One of us usually comes to drag the other one out for food if Alyssa doesn’t.”

 

Lovett files all of this away; he’s going to try for at least his first week to not be that dude who doesn’t know anyone’s name. Also, it’s probably not a thing, and it’s probably not his Tommy. That Tommy. Something stirs in the back of his mind, from one of the times he was glaring at Jon Favreau from across the floor of the Democratic Convention, of a blond head following behind him. The back of neck feeling turns into a shiver.

 

“Favs, you will not fucking believe what this asshole, oh, hi, oh -”

 

Lovett turns, but he already knows what he’s going to see. Tommy, a better name for a dog than a person, which is what Lovett said about Obama’s senate press dude. Blond head and mouth that laughed at everything Lovett wanted him to. Tommy is holding a paper bag and wearing a horrible suit. Tommy is here, in the White House, and Lovett’s boss’s best friend. At least he looks as sick as Lovett feels.

 

Tommy opens his mouth, and then swallows and then says, “I gotta-” and then Tommy turns on his heels and leaves.

 

“What the fuck,” Lovett says. His mind contains only _what the fuck_. 

 

Jon Favreau’s face cycles through a variety of expression and lands on ‘uncomfortable parent’. “I’m sorry? About that. It’s a weird time for all of us and Tommy’s just, look, he doesn’t want people to know but, he just broke up with his girlfriend, really nasty. So.”

 

Lovett’s own internal Wheel of Fortune of emotions lands with a very firm ding on ‘fucking furious’. “Be right back,” he says and heads out after Tommy.

 

He doesn’t have to go far, Tommy is leaning with his back against a wall, breathing hard, and Lovett has a pang of... something before he remembers the girlfriend, remembers all the dumb shit he said to Tommy and the pain lances sharp somewhere that might just be his own heart.

 

Tommy lifts his head and he’s even paler now, looks terrified, like he has any kind of reason to be scared of Lovett, like he’s not exactly the kind of guy who would punch Lovett for much less. “Oh my god, I’m not going to out you or whatever,” Lovett snaps and Tommy makes a noise but Lovett can’t... He cannot. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to forget that it ever happened, just like you did. Okay? I’m not going to tell Favreau you’re gay or-”

 

“I’m not gay,” Tommy snaps and that’s enough to make Lovett say, as cruel as he can, “Then why did you let me suck your dick, huh?”

 

“Jesus, Jon,” Tommy says, which is a really fucking cruel choice of words because Lovett is going to have a full body sex flashback in the White House. “Can you not? And Jon knows about you.” Then, clearly reading Lovett’s face. “Not that it was you, that... Jon Lovett, of course you’re _Jon Lovett_. Fuck. He knows there was a guy. We filled in our disclosure forms together, I had to put down that I’d had, um, one night with a man.” His face is all blotchy again, just like it was when Lovett had him opened up on his bed and begging. When Lovett though he was Tommy’s first, not some kind of... experiment. No wonder Tommy ran in the cold light of morning. One night with a man. That’s one way to put it.

 

“No, fuck, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to get into it with my boss’s fucking best bro, I don’t want anything to do with it.” He’s going to hear Tommy’s reflexive _I’m not gay_ overlaid forever over all the stupid shit Lovett said about trust and patience .

 

There is a beat where Tommy just stares, horrified and still looking so afraid. “If that’s... that’s what you want. Okay,” Tommy says, and nothing else, just stops there almost without finishing the word. Fine. So Lovett gets to be the one who flees this time.

 

It’s not as satisfying as he’d hoped.

 

*

 

Jon Favreau, Jon, Favs, reacts to Lovett and Tommy’s inability to get along with a constant face of betrayal and heartbreak that Lovett finds both disproportionate and unfair. If anyone should be getting to be those things it should be Jon Lovett; fooled again by a curious guy on the rebound. He and Tommy have managed a few polite exchanges in mixed company which have left Lovett feeling squirmy and miserable.

 

“I totally thought you’d get along,” Jon says mournfully after Lovett blows off going to a bar again even though he really needs a way into the Obama clique. He’s been letting Jon think that he and Tommy have some kind of campaign trail era beef and it’s only making Jon act more guilty about the still present divides about the new staff and the orginanal Obamaians.

 

“It’s not about Tommy,” Lovett tells him with a very small sniff that he hopes comes across as suitably dismissive. Nothing is about Tommy. Nothing at all.

 

“Then come out with us,” Jon says. “No, I know you have quote ‘gayer plans than that’. Fine, come get lunch with Tom and Alyssa and me.”

 

Lovett, hoisted by his own sniff, has to say yes. Which means Ruby Tuesday, squashed into a booth next to Alyssa, opposite Jon and somehow still Lovett keeps catching himself looking at Tommy.

 

Tommy leans into Jon when he laughs or when he thinks Jon is being smart or stupid or another special lean that Lovett suspects darkly is for when Tommy is feeling fond of him. Alyssa turns out to be a person who sees emotional undercurrents and just decides to redirect them to her own channels. Mostly today she is telling senate stories about “her boys”, about making them fetch her sadness pancakes, about Jon helping her pick date dresses and Tommy crying reading about the melting Antarctic. Tommy laughs at all of these stories, very pink in a way that looks enjoyable to him, like he can’t imagine anything better than a short brilliant woman lovingly dunking on him.

 

Lovett can do this, he can do some lunches where he tells a few stories of his own and makes Jon giggle. He really wants to make friends with Alyssa, plus she’s probably a very useful person to know better, combining both importance, efficiency, and not being the kind of man who looks at Lovett like they think he should still be in that recycling bin or at best shoved in a locker. And Tommy doesn’t try to talk to him directly, just like Lovett asked.

 

Tommy does appear in Jon’s office just as often as Jon said that he would, which is annoying, if only because Lovett can get away with napping on the sofa if it’s only Jon but if other people start appearing it throws off his whole game. It’s also annoying because Tommy keeps revealing things about himself, like how he’s funny in a sharp, dry way and mean in an even sharper way, like somehow he knew that Lovett can’t resist a man who can craft an insult. It’s impossible not to laugh, or join in the roast of a particularly republican Republican, or just slot into the easy, endless flow between Tommy and Jon.

 

It’s also a thing that Tommy brings snacks, or coffee. “Just reliving my early states days,” he says when Lovett makes an offhand comment about it. “All I did was bring people coffee. Makes me feel young again.”

 

“Don’t believe him, Tom just likes to look after people,” Jon says, looking over at them with huge, hopeful eyes. His campaign to make Lovett like Tommy is very unsubtle. It is also working, although not always in the ways Jon is going for.

 

Lovett would come hang out in Jon’s office anyway, because weirdly he and Jon can talk for hours and sometimes agree on one single thing in an afternoon but somehow it’s still... really cool. Not that Jon is cool, far from it, but he’s already someone Lovett looks forward to getting time with.

 

And Jon comes with Tommy. That is an immutable fact of the universe, everyone knows it and knows them. They use the phrase “best friend” and Lovett can’t help being charmed by that, as well as everything about their strange and tender broship.

 

“Naaaah,” Tommy drawls, putting down one of the two very incriminating takeaway cups of coffee that he’s holding.

 

Jon hits him gently on the arm where Tommy’s leaning against Jon’s desk like he owns it. Casual invasion of personal space, too. That’s another thing Lovett can’t stop circling back to in his head, the way that Tommy can’t stop demonstrating affection. Jon says, “You do! You took me to like, six medical appointments last month. And you bring both of us good coffee - I fucking know this stuff isn’t from the mess, don’t pretend otherwise - just because Lovett complained about how shitty the coffee is here. Lovett, this is a guy didn’t even tell me he’d broken up with his girlfriend until after we’d won the election because he was worried _I’d_ be too upset and he tries to say ‘nah.’”

 

Lovett’s attention snaps to Tommy in a way that both of them have to notice. “Oh? I thought it was more of a recent break up.”

 

Tommy says, “No,” and then has to clear his throat a couple of times. “No it wasn’t.”

 

“It’s just that I thought that it was,” Lovett says, caught on Tommy’s gaze. “So. Good to know.” He finds himself fiddling with his shirt cuff, redoing and undoing the stupid tiny button there.

 

Tommy smiles his truest smile at Lovett. “All my mistakes were made in good faith, not out of any relationship angst. It wasn’t that kind of break up. No rebounds, no cheating, no big drama.”

 

Jon says, “Oh, so no more excuses for being a dick, that’s what you’re saying, huh?”

 

“Something like that,” Tommy says, and Lovett lets himself smile back. "Who hasn't made some shitty emotional decisions on a whim. Tommy is just trying to absolve himself of all the absolute bullshit he said about the Clinton staffers on the trail."" he says and Tommy laughs and Lovett is so fucking relieved to be able to enjoy it.

 

*

 

It’s easier, after that, when Lovett no longer has to feel guilty about remembering how good the sex was, when he no longer has to think of himself as some kind of mean revenge or dirty secret. It’s even better to look at Tommy and not see someone unfaithful, an image that always looked unnatural laid over Tommy’s loyal to the bone self. it doesn't fit with the Tommy of last Tuesday.

 

Last Tuesday was when Tommy sent a very strongly word correction to a regional paper who took it as a threat and let the offending reporter go. Last Tuesday was the day when Tommy spent hours and hours of his non existent free time calling around to give this guy good references. It was when Lovett had to bring Tommy coffee so that he would stay awake so that he could make another call to someone on the west coast who probably wouldn't be able to help but just maybe, just maybe they could. Tommy doesn't just let guilt fester, he takes action.

 

"You're weirdly moral for a soulless press guy who only cares about results," he had told Tommy and it's true. There's some weirdass knight errant quality to Tommy, doing the dirtier work for a higher cause with a nobler reason, to keep everyone else clean. Lovett would like to be less weak to this mix of pragmatism and valour, but maybe he doesn't have to be quite as unaffected as he's been trying to be. It certainly makes Jon sunburst with joy every time Lovett says something nice about Tommy, every time he catches them talking, every one of the times that Lovett agrees to hang out with the two of them. Tommy still brings coffee even though it no longer comes as an olive branch. Lovett still mocks him about pretty much his entire life, except that Tommy starts to laugh like he likes it. It’s maybe not quite as large a miracle but it’s still good; a friendship that comes easy and makes the days brighter. It's not like Lovett had been looking for anything more when he invited Tommy into his bed.

 

*

 

There are always meetings about three words in a remark that go on for three hours, which Lovett always thought were the worst of all the meetings until they start in on the meetings about messaging stuff that Lovett actually knows about and it all gets much worse. He's in round five of 'I don't think we should act like we're afraid of science, let's not patronise the American people, let's be proud of our data!' and he's just so fucking tired. One of the goons from the press office says, "Yes I've heard about your energy speech for Hillary, but we all know how that story ends, right, Tom? I think we might know a little bit more about what the American people want to hear," and Lovett is about to explode when Tommy's response starts with a low and terrifying. "No, we don't."

 

There is a glorious, ringing moment of silence. Tommy unfolds himself from his lean on the wall. He's really, really tall sometimes. "We knew how to make a case for progressive policy, and if you think we got here to do anything else but to stand by those values, you need to take a really long look at yourself. Take a long hard look at who you are and compare that to who you work for. And then compare it to someone who knows a hell of a lot more about the issue at hand." He gestures over at Lovett. "Have you even read his speech? Because I have, and it's brilliant. Have you got a math degree that you've previously not mentioned? Data science? No? Then let's trust Lovett is right on this one and work together to find a way to make everyone else in the country trust that too."

 

Lovett's whole stupid heart skips a whole stupid beat. There has to be something to say that isn't a very revealing 'thank you'. That isn't 'that's one of the nicest things anyone has said to me and you said in here in the West Wing. "Exactly," he says. When nothing else arrives for him to say, he says it again and then sits down and opens his laptop.

 

He holds Tommy back at the end of the meeting and does say thank you, tripping over it and all the ways he found what Tommy said cool and eloquent. And hot. But he does manage not to tell Tommy that.

 

"It's, it's fine," Tommy says, immediately going red like he always does when people compliment him even though it happens fairly often. "Please stop telling me how cool it was for me to yell at a senior staffer."

 

"But it was!" Lovett says, moving to firmer ground. "It was the coolest thing I've seen you do, and it was really brave because you know that he's just going to -"

 

"Lovett, _please_ ," Tommy says with a weird gasp. Lovett shuts up. Tommy takes a deep breath. "Sorry. Fucking stupid. But if you keep saying things like that I'm going to have some kind of -" he pulls a face. "Panic episode. Okay?"

 

It's not okay at all, but it makes sense to Lovett at once. He breathes deeply too, waits to see Tommy mirror it. "Okay, Tommy, I'll shut up, god, no need to be so dramatic." It gets the smile that he was hoping for. "Hey, how about instead of this heart to heart, we go back to your place, order pizza and watch something shitty. I'll even buy beer."

 

Tommy makes him buy some kind of non Miller Light beer and they proceed to get pleasantly and then seriously drunk before the pizza even shows up. Tommy doesn't look so on edge, though, which is what Lovett wanted, and he lets Lovett pick the movie, and then another, and only talks when asked a direct question. Time passes way too fast.

 

"I should head, it's like, a nightmare to get across the city this late," Lovett says when the credits roll on Doctor No. He doesn't want to leave this comfortable chair across from a giggly, relaxed Tommy.

 

"I thought you lived over by Dupont," Tommy says and Lovett is thrown for a second by Tommy knowing that, how does he, and then remembers handsome, nervous Tommy standing in his doorway. He'd not really considered before that Tommy could have dropped by his apartment. Lovett had maybe looked out for him at the three shitty gay bars of DC before really crushing down that hope. But Tommy didn't ever show up again. But then Tommy, here, now, says, "You should just stay here, it's late and the bus takes for fucking ever. And don't say you can bike, you'll crash again."

 

"You go over your handbars one time," Lovett mutters. "Also, I moved out." He can grow as a person, he can. He's up to like, grade school in his magnanimous forgiveness of his many bullies. There is also something good in the pain of remembering how hot for it Tommy was when he kissed Lovett in the middle of his old apartment. Tommy is drunker than he was then but he still manages to produce Lovett a blanket to sleep under even as he knocks cups off the table like a dope. He grins, says, "Well, it was kind of a shitty place anyway," and then bites his lip like he just remembered he's not supposed to mention that he ever saw it. "Sorry."

 

"You know what, it was, it was a garbage apartment, I'm ready to admit that. Had some good times there, though."

 

"As did I," Tommy says with one of those smiles he usually shoots Lovett when no one else gets a reference or he knows that Lovett is thinking the exact same mean thing about someone's point in a meeting. The fun kind of secret.

 

Lovett pulls the blanket up to his neck protectively. "Good," he says.

 

*

 

It's not a crush if you don't say it's one, even to yourself. If Lovett can make himself believe that it’ll be the biggest miracle of them all.

 

*

  


Lovett gets his permanent clearance on the day he’s been at the White House for five months. He’s been at the White House, working in the White House, working as a presidential speechwriter in the White House, for five months.

 

“Drinks, tonight?” he says, waving the paperwork at Cody and then at Jon, who is in their office for once. “I’m not considered a threat to the nation, let’s go get messy drunk and make them regret it.”

 

Jon flings his head back with laughter and Lovett sighs internally for a few moments about how much easier a nice safe completely unobtainable crush on him would be.

 

Jon is saying something about organising, listing off people to invite. “I can call down to Dan, try and persuade him to knock off before midnight,” Jon says, a handsome hypocrite.

 

“Don’t worry about it, I need to ask Dan something about something and he’s always in Lower Press yelling at someone these days, I can ask Tommy and rescue him as well,” Lovett says. He doesn’t miss the blindingly delighted grin that Jon tries to hide.

 

Dan isn’t in Lower Press, and there’s a moment when Lovett thinks Tommy isn’t either, except that when he gets close enough he finds Tommy on the floor petting a dog. Somehow Lovett feels like he should have known this. Tommy is a huge melting puddle of feelings about every single dog he meets or sees or just thinks about. Lovett genuinely worries that Tommy is going to crack after some particularly traumatic day and steal one from an innocent passer-by.

 

Tommy doesn’t get up, just grins at Lovett and keeps right on petting the enormous dog which is clearly already in love with him, all belly up and adoring paws. “Lovett, hi! Have you met Bo? Look at this good boy, say hi to Lovett, buddy, c’mon, that’s right, show him how polite boys say hi, they don’t call you and open with ‘and here’s why you’re wrong about GDP’, do they, do they good boy.”

 

Lovett looks at Tommy gently floofing Bo’s ears and completely unselfconsciously cooing and baby talking to him, and has no idea how he ever didn’t see Tommy at Jon’s shoulder. He thought of it as Tommy eclipsed and maybe that’s right, because an eclipse is something in front of sunlight.

 

Tommy looks up at Lovett and smiles, and there it goes, the last ice shard of defence that Lovett has, melting right away in the face of this. Luckily there’s a dog to distract Tommy from this internal meltdown. Lovett gives Bo a quick fuss. “I’m having You Didn’t Get Called Before The FBI drinks to celebrate my security clearance going through. Tonight, whenever we all get out of here. You free?”

 

Tommy waves around the room. “Barring the usual fuckery, yeah, sure, Lovett, I’d love it.”

  
Lovett rolls his eyes. “That’s not going to get any funnier, Tommy, you can step on that rake as many times as you like.”

 

“Nice pull,” Tommy says as Lovett admits defeat and gets down on the floor and lets Tommy and Bo distract him for way too much of his day.

  


*

 

There's just one fact that Lovett gets back from the checkers that he cannot find sourcing for. He knows it, he knew it so he put it in the speech, and now he has to find out how he knows it. Which means that he's going to be late for his own fucking drinks, of course. He doesn't mind being late generally and there's something to be said for getting to make an entrance, but the longer it drags on the more he edges closer to that 'crashing the party' feeling. He can already picture all the conversations that will be building up a wall of 'oh you had to be there' jokes.

 

Also, there’s always something about walking into a bar and seeing Tommy there waiting, even when he’s surrounded by all of their workmates and is Lovett’s friend Tommy, who Lovett knows will have got there early and will be looking at a wine list even though it’s a pointless endeavor in the bars that they go to.

 

"Hey Lovett," Tommy, actually, in real life, says, making Lovett jump in his chair. Tommy raises an eyebrow. "Did I interrupt something? Got caught up in a particularly thrilling illicit blogpost about municipal transportation?" He sounds very indulgent.

 

"God, I fucking wish," Lovett says, taking in Tommy's own tired eyes, the sheer level of crumpled soft everything from his shirt to his smile. He fucking wishes.

 

Tommy comes over and puts a Ho Ho next to Lovett's keyboard. "Come on, eat something, line your stomach before we head out, you know that Michael will make us lead with shots."

 

"I appreciate your faith in everything including my ability to get out of here while Michael still has shots money. I'm probably stuck for the night in fucking fact checking hell. You? What's keeping you from the bright lights and homosocial bonding of group tequila?" Lovett considers the offered Hoho rather than considering rumpled Tommy. It won't be the first time he's had to make vending machine food his new thrilling plan for the night.

 

Tommy leans on the back of Lovett's chair, turns him side to side slightly which Lovett allows for reasons that he has kept pushing back down. "Oh, no, I'm done, Jon said that you were staying to edit and I figured you wouldn't have eaten, So. So, hoho." Lovett stares up at him, struck again and anew and, god, he has to look at this. "Oh come on," Tommy says, poking his shoulder. "You can give me at least a smile for that, I'll even take a pained groan."

 

"You're kind to me," Lovett says without meaning to. Maybe he can blame exhaustion, or motion sickness from Tommy's chair pushing antics. Or maybe he can step up, finally, and dust off memories and not just try and hold two opposing ideas of Tommy in his mind and call that smart rather than chickenshit. He's stronger now with time and belief, shored up by coming through those front gates every day and feeling like he deserves it. He couldn't find a way to admit to himself then that he'd wanted to build something with Tommy. He can at least try now. "I can't make it work, in my head. I just... You wouldn't lie to someone to get them into bed and then run away in the morning. You don't run. I run, but you don't. And you... You're not kind to people unless you mean it. And you were so kind that night."

 

Tommy doesn't ask what he's talking about. Tommy sits down on the edge of Lovett's desk with an audible thump. "I could say the same thing about you," he says. He's looking at his hands "I don't know... Honestly, it might be the kindest or... you know, I was going to qualify it as kind in Lovett speak but it wasn't. You were just so good and so goddamn understanding. God, Jon, I still think of that as like, the gold standard of sexual partnering." He smiles to himself and then, painfully, right at Lovett. "Thought you didn't want to talk about it."

Lovett shakes his head and starts again and says, “I know I said that I didn’t want to talk about that night again but I think maybe we need to. I think I want to. Ugh.”

 

Tommy freezes in the doorway. “I could do that,” he says, throat working visibly. “If that’s what you want.”

 

“I didn't want to talk about being taken in and then cast off by an asshole, but I think I'm okay to talk about how you... you really were into it. Into me. I'll do some emotional work if I know the payoff is going to be my initial instincts being proven right. If you don't regret it. Me." There’s no point in pretending otherwise, that Lovett didn’t pull some real Lizzie Bennett stuff when he thought that Tommy didn’t think him handsome enough to trouble him.

 

Tommy breathes out. “Lovett. I... Of course I didn’t, Jon.”

 

He hardly ever calls Lovett ‘Jon’ which has always been a relief, before.

 

Lovett has to laugh. “I thought it was... I thought you ran from your mistake. That you went gay for the night and then realised you weren’t actually into it, or weren’t ever that into it. That you’d lied to me, deliberately, to get me to fuck you. All of the above and more. I pretended that I wasn’t thinking about you and your motives when in fact I’d constructed this whole narrative for this careless, callous dude who I liked enough to hurt me. And now I know _you_ and that isn’t my Tommy Vietor. Not at all. You’re thoughtless, sure, and you say the dumbest shit when you’re angry, but you’re not cruel on purpose”

 

He had really not meant to give Tommy a speech, but maybe that’s just a professional hazard now. He really hopes his words work as well out of his mouth as they do the president’s.

 

Tommy rubs his hand over his face. “Lovett, you kicked me out. I liked you enough that that hurt too.” The rawness of his voice, the gesture, is something that Lovett hasn’t seen much of in the time between Tommy leaving his bed and now. He is only just coming to terms with how much Tommy prised himself open for Lovett, what a gift he made of himself to a very ungrateful person.

  
“It was the morning,” Lovett protests which makes Tommy grin. “I’m not at my best.”

 

“Well, I know that now,” Tommy says with a laugh that Lovett would find objectionably pointed from most other people. Tommy can know him, though. Lovett might actually want him to.

 

Lovett reaches back to that awful conversation they had all those months ago. “You didn’t mean it in a shitty way, did you, when you said that you’d put one night with a man on your SF68.” It’s something Lovett couldn’t have conceived of, all those months ago when he met Tommy just along the strip from here, down at the gay end, and even less when he was yelling at him in the most secure corridor in the world.

 

Tommy makes a couple of weird clicky noises, then swallows. “No, I didn’t,” he says in almost a rasp, like Lovett reset him and these are his first words. “You didn’t want to... You were a one night man, you told me that, so that was what I put on my form.”

 

Lovett wants to sit down with him and Favreau and talk about everything they had to confess into an impersonal government form, every single stupid mistake and revelation, every single thing that made them so angry to have to ‘confess’. Tommy probably wrote down his one night with a man with defiance in every stroke. “Of course you just wanted to be honest. You could have made it sound less like you were trying to minimise your experimental phase,” he tells Tommy. Tommy pulls a face that Lovett wants to explore.

 

Tommy reaches out a hand and puts it on Lovett’s shoulder. Earnest. Steady. “I’m sorry for running, I really thought that was what you wanted. You said you didn’t like awkward moments and I was really embarrassed about getting the brush off. And I’m sorry for making you think I was an asshole.”

 

“I’m sorry for thinking you were,” Lovett says, just as earnestly. It’s catching around this place.

 

“Want to go get that coffee?” Tommy says, because Lovett was right all along when he thought Tommy was ridiculously brave.

 

And Lovett says, “Yes.” 


End file.
